Housing Opportunity Fund Board Members Meet For The First Time, They’re Already Under A Time Crunch

Pittsburgh City Council approved a revenue stream for the Housing Opportunity Fund in December 2017, and last month approved members of an advisory board. They met for the first time on Friday. Those 17 people are charged with figuring out how to allocate the fund’s first $10 million in the next six months.

“We’re more than halfway through the calendar year, which is the city’s fiscal year, and we haven’t spent one nickel,” said Mark Masterson of the Northside Community Development Fund. He, like many of the board’s members, served on the city’s Affordable Housing Task Force.

Masterson warned members that given the political fights over the fund, the board should move quickly to get money out the door and demonstrate success in order to secure the fund’s future.